In the issue’s preface, authors Robert Mantz, Hugh De Long, Luke Haverhals, and Paul Trulove state, “The objective of this focus issue is to expose the broader community to the research going on in the area of molten salts and ionic liquids beyond that which is presented in the symposium that is organized every two years by ECS. Hopefully these examples of research being pursued will result in the possibility of additional collaborations with the community at large.”

For over 40 years, research related to molten salts and ionic liquids has found a home with ECS. Over the course of those years, interest in the area has expanded, leading unique applications in energy, sensors, rare earth and nuclear chemistry, electrodeposition, reactions, and solute and solvent properties.

The EAC expedites and facilitates evaluation and publication decisions of manuscripts submitted to ECS journals. In this role, experts like Prof. Babu, provide support to the journal editors in areas where existing technical editors and associate editors may need additional assistance. Committee members are available for a rapid review and additional opinions to supplement conflicting or imbalanced comments from other reviewers; processing assistance in the journal areas that receive a large number of annual submissions; and reviewing and expediting articles that go in the Society’s other communications media.

Babu is the past director of Clarkson’s Center for Advanced Materials Processing and an expert in the field of chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), holding 31 patents. He has supervised 44 PhD and 38 MS students and is a co-author of more than 250 professional publications, including 198 peer-reviewed publications. He has organized and co-organized many conferences and symposiums, as well as served as keynote speaker numerous times. He has been named twice with the IBM Faculty Award (2004 and 2016), and acknowledgement of his contributions to education and research from Intel, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the World Education Congress among other external recognition.

Brett Lucht is a professor of chemistry at the University of Rhode Island, where his research focuses on organic materials chemistry. Lucht’s research includes the development of novel electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries and other efforts to improve the performance of electrolytes for electric vehicles. Lucht has recently been named associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

The Electrochemical Society: What do you hope to accomplish in your new role as associate editor?

Brett Lucht: I hope to improve the prestige of the journal. While the Journal of The Electrochemical Society is the oldest journal of electrochemical science, competition from other journals has become fierce. The Electrochemical Society is the largest scientific organization focused on electrochemistry and ECS meetings are very well attended. Thus publishing electrochemical research in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society should be the most prestigious place to publish.

ECS: Why should authors publish in ECS journals?

BL: The Journal of The Electrochemical Society has been in continuous production since 1902—115 years. While many new journals come and go, they are frequently focused on narrow topics which fluctuate in importance. Publications in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society will last the test of time. In my area of research, lithium-ion batteries, many new journals are publishing research in this area. However, many of the fundamental research articles providing the foundation for this field were published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

In May 2017, we sat down with ECS journal editors Robert Savinell and Dennis Hess at the 231st ECS Meeting to discuss the future of scholarly publishing, open access, and the Society’s Free the Science initiative. The conversation was led by Rob Gerth, director of marketing and communications at ECS.

In 1978, Savinell became an active member of ECS, serving as an associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) in 1984. He was appointed editor of JES in 2013, where he began focusing on continuing the tradition of rigorous review, enhancing timeliness of decision and publication, while transitioning JES to full open access. Savinell has recently been reappointed as editor JES for a three-year period, from May 18, 2017 through May 17, 2020.

Hess became a member of ECS in 1974. He has been active in both the ECS Dielectric Science and Technology and Division and ECS Electronics Division, serving as a divisional editor from 1978 through 1990. Currently, Hess is the editor of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology.

Recently there has been a spate of comment expressing frustration about the allegedly slow progress of open access, and especially Green open access. It is hard to disagree with some of this sentiment, but it is important that frustration not lead us into trying to solve a problem with a worse solution. The key, I believe, to making real advances in open access is to walk away from the commercial publishers who have dominated the market for scholarship. Only if we do that can libraries free up money from our collection budgets to do truly new things. A new business model with the same old players, even if it were possible, would be a mistake.

In April 2017, ECS celebrated its first annual Free the Science Week, giving the world a preview of what complete open access to peer-reviewed scientific research will look like.

Free the Science Week is part of ECS’s long-term Free the Science initiative, which will provide free access to the peer-reviewed research in the entire ECS Digital Library, not just for a week, but permanently.

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (2nd Edition), by Mark E. Orazem and Bernard Tribollet, provides the fundamentals needed to apply impedance spectroscopy to a broad range of applications with emphasis on obtaining physically meaningful insights from measurements. The second edition provides expanded treatment of the influence of mass transport, time-constant dispersion, kinetics, and constant-phase elements.

The new edition improves on the clarity of some of the chapters, more than doubling the number of examples. It has more in-depth treatment of background material needed to understand impedance spectroscopy, including electrochemistry, complex variables, and differential equations. This title includes expanded treatment of the influence of mass transport and kinetics, and reflects recent advances in the understanding of frequency dispersion and interpretation of constant-phase elements.

This monograph is sponsored by ECS, and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

About the Authors

Mark E. Orazem is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. He organized the 6th International Symposium on Electrochemical Impedence Spectroscopy and teaches a short course on impedance spectroscopy for The Electrochemical Society.

Bernard Tribollet is the Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Associate Director of the Laboratoire Interfaces et Systémes Electrochemique at Pierre and Marie Curie University. Dr. Tribollet instructs an annual short course on impedance spectroscopy.

Ten new issues of ECS Transactions (ECST) have just been published for the upcoming 231st ECS Meeting. The papers in these issues of ECST will be presented in New Orleans, Louisiana, May 28 – June 1, 2017.

A new issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) has just been published. This issue includes 19 papers which will be presented at the Sixth International Conference on Semiconductor Technology for Ultra Large Integrated Circuits and Thin Film Transistors (ULSIC vs. TFT 6), in Schloss Hernstein, Hernstein, Austria, May 21-25, 2017.

Ajit Khosla is a professor at Yamagata University in Yonezawa, Japan and a visiting professor at San Diego State University’s College of Engineering. Khosla’s work in the area of nano-microsystems has resulted in more than 100 scientific and academic contributions. Khosla has recently been named associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES).

The Electrochemical Society: What do you hope to accomplish in your role as associate editor?

Ajit Khosla: As an associate editor, I hope to accomplish quick and fair peer review process, as little as three weeks from submission. I would like to encourage and convince scientists and scholars from all over the world, including ones who are presenting their work at ECS meetings, to strongly consider submitting full-length journal papers to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. I will also be focusing on to soliciting high-quality papers in the sensor topical interest area in biosensors, micro-nano fabricated sensors, systems & devices for healthcare, and environmental monitoring.